Fractured
by chandros
Summary: Jenny tries to deal with her conflicting feelings for Tom after the end of the games. A Forbidden Games fic.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Characters and Forbidden Game concept belong to L.J. Smith.

Note – I'm sorry for reposting this! I realized later that for some reason only half of what I'd written actually appeared on the site and in my frustration removed the story, thinking that meant it would actually be removed (not just from my account) and I could repost the entire piece. This will function as the prologue to a longer story if people are interested in reading more.

She was shaking, her body moving of its own accord, and all she could feel was the cold emptiness before the charred door to her grandfather's basement. Where once the runes had smoldered like hot embers remained only the stain of blood. Arms reached for her, trying to pull her up the steps, but she shrugged them off, ignoring them like she did the insistent voices in the background. Nothing. Nothing remained in her trembling arms. The only proof was the gold ring she had clenched within her left fist.

"Jenny"

"Jenny, you have to get up"

"Jenny, please! He's gone"

"Jenny!"

The voices pounded against her like hail. She flinched.

"Jenny, look at me!"

And she did. Tom extended his hand towards her, his expression shifting involuntarily at the uncanny contrast of her honey gold hair against her unnaturally pale face. The sheen of unshed tears caused her cypress green eyes to appear larger, an effect intensified by her shivering frame. Tom pulled her into his arms, clasping her limp body against his.

"It's over. Jenny, it's going to be okay, don't worry." Tom's hands gently caressed her hair as he closed his eyes and kissed her forehead. "Thorny, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, baby, but it's going to be alright. It will get better."

Another hand grasped her shoulder as Dee whispered, "He's right. But now you have to come with us, we have to leave now. Please, Jenny," she pleaded, "just think how happy Summer's family will be once we get home." Jenny brought her head away from Tom's warm chest, slightly nodding at Dee and the others.

"Yes, let's figure out a way to get home" said Audrey. Michael stood behind her with his arms wrapped around her waist, his chin nuzzled against her shoulder. Jenny looked at Tom once more and straightened up out of his embrace. "I love you Tommy," she whispered, her hand grazing his cheek. "I love you too, Thorny," he said reaching for her hand. Jenny felt the warmth flowing from Tom's fingers, but she couldn't forget the gold band biting against the palm of her left hand, clutched so tightly that her knuckles showed white under the strain.

She hadn't lied. She did love Tom. Those moments when Jenny saw his profile outlined by the mid-afternoon sun, when she looked into his soft hazel eyes and was confronted by something immeasurably fragile – then Jenny felt her love for him like an ache in her chest. She clung to the old memories of the hibiscus bushes and elementary school puppy love with an intensity that scared her sometimes, replaying them over and over again in her mind.

She often felt that she hadn't really changed, despite what her friends told her. She wore the ring that proclaimed she was "her only master," but Jenny had realized that saying the words, binding them to your skin, didn't always make it so. Oh, she still volunteered, she had even decided to look into what type of college she might be interested in. That didn't mean she had made much progress.

People didn't stop to stare at Jenny anymore, their eyes attempting to grasp at the quiet intensity she had emanated. Tom didn't seem to mind – no, he seemed quite satisfied with this ordinary Jenny, pretty, but in the unformed, girlish way of a thousand other sixteen-year-old girls.

She tried to remember what she had learned during the games, but those insights had gradually faded away against the insistent pull of the everyday. It was so much easier, routine so seductive. Immediacy demanded the type of emotional investment that Jenny didn't know if she could make. The first week after they had returned from Pennsylvania, she had made the effort to really "feel" things, experience them – and it had left her broken amid a confusion of emotions. She wore the gold band on her finger now, but it seemed as if its luster had dimmed with the passing of time.

That first week, she had seen his eyes everywhere. She would start when she woke up to that pulsating, living blue in the early morning sky. Jenny had felt the softness of his hands, his hair in the winds - she breathed it in like she was starving for air. Oh, it was much easier to let that all go. To wake up like a normal person and not notice the stabbing beauty of the world. That's what she told herself at least. But sometimes it became difficult to forget. Jenny had gone out with Tom and his friends one night. She was at his side, nodding and smiling as the conversation demanded, when suddenly something inside her was riven. She was shocked by the intensity of what she felt, the wild thing inside her screaming for acknowledgement. The faces of the other boys at the table blurred before her eyes as she realized that to them, she was nothing but "Tom's girlfriend." Part of her lashed out against Tom, hating him for trapping her like this. She felt extinguished, quenched. Jenny remembered the way she had felt in the shadow world as she lead her friends forward in the last game. In that world she had felt like a woman, not some silly little girl. Jenny had felt her strength and it had radiated from her like a beacon, cutting through the darkness. She hadn't seen the shadows in his eyes, Julian's, until the third game. In that disfigured, warped amusement park, she had finally begun to understand him. Jenny had seen that haunted look, and she had known, had recognized some fractured part of herself reflected back through his eyes.

Maybe she had changed. But she didn't think Tom had, not really. He hadn't been there when she whispered "Gebo," the word humming with deadly power. No, he hadn't seen her smear her blood into the rude carvings in the door, the wood greedily soaking up every drop. Yes, he had been brave, all her friends had been, ready to sacrifice themselves for her life, she hadn't forgotten that. Yet she now felt a kinship with the others that ran deeper than what she felt for Tom. Before the games she hadn't thought that was possible. But it was no good. She didn't want to deal with any of this now, but instead give herself up to the lulling oblivion in Tom's arms.

And so her thoughts wavered, leaving her reeling between the possibilities. Often Jenny found herself in Tom's embrace, a small voice inside pleading, "don't remember, don't remember," because she knew it was wrong those nights when she woke up sighing _his_ name, tasting its intoxicating sound with her tongue, caressing the syllables like a lover.


	2. chapter 2

"Damn!" she yelped, grabbing her ankle in pain. Dee felt she had lost her edge. Couldn't even perform a straightforward front punch anymore without hurting herself. She hobbled over to the side of the fitness studio, propping herself against the wall. Ever since that game... "Oh stop it," she thought to herself. The fact that she hadn't been stretching regularly and had indulged in a few too many bags of fritos really wasn't Julian's fault. Her excuses for not exercising were sounding pretty pitiful lately. But still, the haunted look she kept seeing in her friends' eyes was getting to her.

"You alright Dee? You seem a little off today." It was one of the other black belts. Mike. Who incidentally made a habit of "being off." Dee had always wondered how he had earned his belt. "I could give you a ride home if you want," he offered raising his eyebrows suggestively. "Thanks, Mike," Dee replied, grimacing, "but I'm fine, really."

As she bowed before leaving the studio she caught Mike giving her an appreciative glance from the corner of her eye. It was definitely time to head out, she thought, shuddering slightly under his gaze. She wanted to shower quickly before she met Jenny for the movie tonight. Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. If Dee's new problems involved fritos, Jenny's issues seemed to be a little more complicated. Not as bad as Zach though. The affection that had seemed to spring up between him and Summer proved short-lived to say the least, and Dee had often noticed him staring strangely at Jenny with a bizarre gleam in his eye. She couldn't really put her finger on what was going on with him, but Dee knew the less she saw of him lately, the better she felt.

"Okay," she thought, "time to cheer Jenny up, whether she likes it or not" as she pulled her car out of the parking lot.

Jenny began to gather her hair into a low ponytail, then paused, throwing the leopard print scrunci back on top of her dresser. Well, maybe Julian would take some satisfaction in the fact he had influenced her enough that she'd graduated from pastel solids to leopard print when it came to her scrunci preferences. "Except that he's not watching you anymore," she thought. "Damn." She shook out her hair and felt to make sure the ring was still on its chain against her chest. Yes, it was there. Earlier she had caught her mother frowning pensively at her left hand when she had still worn the ring on her finger. The last thing any of them needed was to rehash the whole shadow world fiasco again. Especially once her parents and everyone else's had finally accepted that the kids had all experienced some sort of massive long-lived group hallucination. Summer's parents still seemed to harbor suspicions that it had all been drug induced, but all of the tests had turned up negative. Lately though, Jenny wondered. She had felt about as attractive as a dishrag the last couple months. The idea that some unbelievably handsome prince of the shadows had stalked and abducted her began to sound a little incredible. "Hmm," she thought flashing what she tried to make a wickedly seductive grin at the mirror, "Jenny, queen of darkness!"

"Jenny!" her mother cried. "You are just going out with Dee tonight, aren't you?" Jenny's nerves grated at the suspicious tone in her mother's voice. Though she realized it probably would have helped her case if she hadn't been trying out her come-hither smile at that exact moment, it was still frustrating. "Your father and I think you have lied to both of us enough recently. I would hate to think you were hiding anything from us again..."

"No, mom, I'm not hiding anything. It's just Dee and I tonight." The cloying scent of Shalimar was going to make her sneeze if her mother remained leaning over in that accusative stance much longer. There was simply way too much essence of amber for her to breath. Her mother kept looking at her, this time narrowing her eyes. "Really mom. You know I'm not with Tom anymore."

"Well, honey, just keep in mind that in rebound relationships, you can't always depend upon your feelings. I know you and Tom were very close, I just don't want you to hurt yourself again."

"Mom," she replied, exasperated, "there is no guy. For the last time, it's just Dee. Really." Her mother just gave her a weak smile as she backed out of Jenny's room. Jenny took one more look in the mirror, this time just analyzing her face, looking for some sign of the girl she had seen reflected in Julian's eyes. _I am my only master_..._all I refuse and thee I choose_. They weren't necessarily irreconcilable statements. "Damn." she thought again for the second time that evening. "You're going to see a movie tonight with your best friend Dee, and you are going to have fun whether you feel like it or not," she told herself. She didn't understand why she was having this sudden Julian-reminiscence attack. She'd been fine for about a month now until tonight. Well, she'd always been able to pull out of her slumps eventually, and she promised herself that this time would be no different.

"Dee's here!" her father called out. Jenny grabbed her purse off the hook in her closet and headed out the door.

The movie hadn't really been bad, but the mediocre sci-fi action movie Dee had wanted to see wasn't really Jenny's thing. Before she had always dragged Tom off to sappy romantic comedies. Things were a bit different now, though. "That's got to be the understatement of the year," she thought. Those movies weren't as satisfying as they had been before. She had realized they didn't work so well when you weren't distracted by the warm body of your boyfriend sitting on your right. And after the amount of conflict she'd gone through during and after the games, the problems the lead characters had to surmount seemed rather tame.

"That was one hell of a roundhouse in that last duel!" Dee excitedly remarked. "Hmm," Jenny mumbled, "I think I missed that one." Dee just shook her head in mock desperation. "All of those beautifully choreographed action sequences, just wasted on you. It's sad, really."

Jenny started suddenly, grabbing Dee's forearm. She stood still, her body practically quivering with tension. "Do you feel that?" she asked Dee. As she turned her head to look at her friend, Jenny felt something she hadn't experienced in months. Eyes. Watching eyes. But that wasn't what had first attracted her attention. That had been the cold. "Jenny, maybe it's just some vent from the theater?" Dee suggested, uncertainly.

No. It wasn't some unseen vent, it was an icy tendril of mist and it was stretching and undulating towards Jenny. Her eyes widened in horror as it began to curl, beckoning like some disembodied finger. No. It couldn't touch her. "Please, no," she whispered. "No, not again." She felt as Dee shifted under her hand. Jenny finally glanced towards her friend and realized she was seeing this too. "Do you feel the eyes?" she whispered. Dee just looked at her for a moment. "I don't think we should just stand here talking Jenny," she hissed urgently, "let's get to the car. We don't have time to think about their eyes, we have to go, now." Dee began to drag her away towards the parking area. The mist lashed towards Jenny once more before retracting back into the shadow of the movie theater exit.


End file.
